Parasites on the Norwegian Taxpayer

Let’s leave aside, for the moment, the questions of how intelligent a minke whale is, and how much cruelty and suffering is inflicted when you kill it using the methods currently employed by Norwegian whaling fleets.  Those are in fact the two most compelling reasons (in order) for why we should end whaling permanently.  But let’s just focus on reason #3, which will serve our purpose well enough all on its own.

And that reason is this.  Whales are vital to the health of ocean ecosystems.  Their value to us both economically, and in the battle against climate change, is enormous.  Taking them out of the ocean and processing them into products for humans to consume comes at an enormous cost.  So what would justify it?  If whale blubber was an essential ingredient in lifesaving medicines perhaps – one which couldn’t be easily obtained anywhere else?  Or a nutritional supplement vital to prenatal care?  Something like that?  The products from whales don’t provide benefits remotely like those, of course, but I suppose if they did the argument against reason #3 might stand a chance.   

So what is the meat from Norway’s hunt actually being used for?  

Earlier this year, Norwegian company Hopen Fisk shipped 6 metric tons of whale meat to a company that operates dog sled tours out of Svalbard.  This according to documents obtained by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), with the help of Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) and one of Norway’s prominent animal protection organizations, known as NOAH.  Additionally, these groups revealed that the transport was done through a subsidiary of an Icelandic company that had pledged almost a decade ago to stop transporting whale meat.

So what we’ve got here is an industry, funded in part by subsidies from the taxpayers of Norway, that produces a product for which there is so little demand that it ends up being sold as dog food.  Even worse, this documentation reveals that whale meat and other products from their bodies are sometimes simply dumped back into the sea.  Norwegian whalers have admitted that this is common practice, according to an article produced for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

‘How can we value the lives of these gentle giants so cheaply when they play such a massive role in mitigating climate breakdown?  We need more whales to help fight climate breakdown, not fewer — killing whales is not just cruel, it is stupid!’

            Vanessa Williams-Grey, Whale and Dolphin Conservation

We are being lied to, not just by Norway’s whaling industry, but also by the Norwegian government.  Domestic demand is not increasing, as they like to tell us.  They also don’t talk about how only 164 tons of the 600 produced in the 2021 whaling season ended up being offered for sale in Norway’s stores.  A further 220 tons was exported to Japan (likely to end as Japan ramps up its own commercial whaling).  But what’s happened to all the rest?  Hopen Fisk isn’t the only company selling it as dog food.  And how much ends up back in the sea?

Consumer demand for whale meat in Norway is declining, despite what we are being told.  A poll commissioned by the three orgs referenced above learned the true percentage of Norway’s residents who eat whale meat often.  That number is 2%. 

But here’s the part that’s really infuriating.  It’s the attitude of the whalers themselves in the face of a public less supportive of their industry than ever, and less so with every passing year.  A report from WDC related a conversation with a fellow by the name of Bjørn Andersen, the skipper on a whaling vessel.  After describing how he’s having a very good season, with a large number of kills currently on board, he taunted those of us who don’t approve of his profession…  ‘some delicate souls do not want whaling. They think it’s awful to kill animals, they should just eat flowers.’

Where to begin?  There’s so much wrong with this very stupid argument, and every time we hear it, in one form or another, it’s proponent always hopes you won’t notice key distinctions that are at play. A whale is not just any animal.  But we’ve agreed we’re going to leave that aside for now.  Back to reason #3 – the importance of whales to the maintenance of healthy ocean ecosystems and our battle with climate change…

When someone kills a whale, he becomes the beneficiary of some kind of financial gain (whether the meat is sold in supermarkets or processed into dog food).  But the real price is paid by the rest of us.  All of us.  It’s effectively a theft from the rest of humanity, who necessarily base their prospects for long-term survival on, among other things, the likelihood that we have healthy populations of whales in our seas.  In the end, if you couch it in purely economic terms, what whaling in the 21st century amounts to is some paltry financial return for a few, and an enormous cost distributed among every other person on Earth.  Please read that sentence again, and know that there is absolutely no embellishment in what I’ve just said.  Whaling makes precisely zero sense.  And we’ve left aside any moral arguments.  In purely practical terms, whaling makes no sense.

The taxpayers of Norway, and every other whaling nation, should tell their governments, in no uncertain terms, that they will no longer support this with their taxes.  Not only that, but that this archaic and wasteful industry needs to cease operating, now and forever.

One last word about Norway’s whale meat industry, and how’s this for environmental impact?  About 7 out of every 10 whales killed by Norway are females.  How can this be?  The reason is that a large proportion of them are pregnant, and because these whales travel more slowly and generally stay closer to shore, they present whalers with an easier target.  So if your quota is going to be filled largely with pregnant females, what do you think will be your likely effect on that species’ population?  Not to mention its genetic diversity?  

Norway is one of 15 nations (full listing below) who’ve recently signed on to a global, high-level Ocean Panel whose goal is to put “sustainability at the heart of ocean management [which] is essential for protection, production and prosperity that benefits people, nature and the economy”.  Obviously, the time is right for such an initiative, and we’re delighted that Norway, and others (full nation listing below) think so too.  But given that, how can the continuation of whaling make any sense at all?  

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Dakota, Canadian Cetacean Alliance

Ocean Panel Member Nations

• Australia
• Canada
• Chile
• Fiji
• Ghana
• Indonesia
• Jamaica
• Japan
• Kenya
• Mexico
• Namibia
• Norway
• Palau
• Portugal
• USA

oceanpanel.org